Eradicating Engineering

Posted on Fri Sep 3rd, 2021 @ 9:55pm by Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII & Ensign George Paxton & Lieutenant Xavier Leiko & Lieutenant JG FalenvralLi Zh’kyhrihr

Mission: By Artemis' Bow
Location: USS Cavalier
Timeline: MD 04
2796 words - 5.6 OF Standard Post Measure

“Talk to me George,” Finn called to the Ensign crawling behind her in the jefferies tubes.

“I...I can’t! I can’t do this. I need to get out!” He exclaimed as they made their way towards engineering with a loosely formulated plan to regain control of the ship. The walls were clearly inching in closer and closer, if they didn't exit soon they'd all die, George thought.

“Stay focused, you’re fine,” Finn replied, racking her brain for something that might distract him long enough to finish the crawl to their destination. “Name every component of the warp drive system, in alphabetical order.”

“But, you already…”

“That’s an order Ensign!” Finn barked, making it clear that she wasn’t interested in excuses. As George muttered through the list, the trio came to an intersection. “Which way is it from here?” She asked Li who was holding the map at the end of their lineup, “and please tell me it’s close.”

Doing her best to ignore Ensign Paxton's freak-out - no doubt the last thing he needed was to feel like a spectacle on top of everything else - Li thought to herself how his next session with the counselor might go. "So, I was stuck in this dark, cramped space with the new helm officer." "Hey, me too. Hated that!" Just doing her part to spread cheer throughout the fleet. She almost missed Keating's switch to addressing her.

"Uh, right," she said, then secured the phaser and picked up her map again. It seemed oddly blurry at first, but she managed to blink her way into making it out. Stopping at the junction also made her aware of a throbbing in her head that hadn't been so noticeable while crawling along. Well, it had been a long day. "We're uh. Main Engineering is on Deck 7, at this point right below where we are. But we can't just take this junction down, the warp core takes up this space. So, I guess right one junction and then down ... we're on deck 2? No, 3. So 4 decks down that ladder and it looks like we'll come out in the corridor right outside Engineering. Unless there's a safer place to come out?"

"4 decks?!" Finn quietly cursed under her breath, trying to keep her own anxiousness from presenting in her voice as to not upset Paxton any further. Break into a rogue Starfleet vessel on a tiny alien shuttle, crawl around endlessly in jefferies tubes with a claustrophobic engineer, and then eradicate a group of mercenaries from engineering. Yes, great, no problem. She sarcastically recanted to herself on how unhinged this away mission had become.

"We need a plan of action once we get there. Any ideas?" She asked.

"Plasma intercooler, plasma coolant, plasma regulator..." George quietly continued listing off warp drive equipment in alphabetical order, providing no additional help at the moment.

"We shoot the bad guys?" Li didn't bother to laugh at her own, unfunny attempt at a joke. "Sorry, I haven't had to think about this kind of thing since the Academy. Even then... I did well in marksmanship. Never really focused on combat except at the helm." She did try to come up with something as Paxton rattled off Engineering systems, only some of which she knew much about. "Any way we can leverage the location? Like equipment in Engineering we can use? Make something leak in a way that'll only cause problems for the short term before we go in?"

"That could work actually," Finn said with a hint of excitement as they reached the next junction. She shifted her body to move down the ladder and looked back at her two companions. "If we can rupture the coolant line, the warp drive should go into an automated shutdown. That would distract the mercs in engineering and bring us to a stop at the same time." A grin spread wide across her face.

George shook his head as if he could shake his fears from his brain as he struggled to add to the conversation. "We could...we could purposely overload a relay close..." He lightly pounded his fist into the floor, frustrated with his own inability to verbalize his thoughts.

"Close to one of the coolant lines, right!" Finn patted him on the shoulder. "Good idea, both of you. This might actually work. At least, I think it decreases our chances of dying," she chuckled as her eyes lit up with a sense of adventure. "There should be a panel in the maintenance access around the core, we can use that to set a relay to overload. The other two will need to continue towards engineering and wait until the chaos starts to unfold."

"A relay," Li said, trying to picture it. She'd replaced relays as part of damage control drills and knew where a few were in shuttles she'd flown. But even so, "relay" was a broad term and what she was thinking of might not even look like these things by the warp core. "Do you know what she's talking about, Ensign? Do you know how to overload one?"

He nodded nervously, hands still slightly trembling. Finn stood on the ladder and thought for a moment. She hated to keep George in the jefferies tubes any longer than he had to be, but she wasn't sure if sending him into engineering to take out a bunch of mercenaries in his current condition was the right choice either.

"George, you're the best candidate to blow the relay. You're going to follow us down for three decks and then branch off towards engineering. The first panel in that tunnel should allow you to send a feedback surge through the system and blow a minor relay close to one of the coolant pipes. It should be enough to cause a rupture and get the core to shut down. Got it?" Finn asked, searching his eyes for understanding, making sure he had heard her over his own panic.

"Got it," he replied, mustering up all of the confidence he could still find to display.

Finn nodded and started down the ladder. They continued in relative silence for a while, each thinking about their task at hand, until they had climbed the full three decks.

"This is it," Finn locked eyes with George before continuing. "The second you send that feedback surge, you head back towards us. Down one more deck and then right to the exit outside of engineering. Hopefully, Li & I will have engineering already cleared for you when you join us, but keeps your wits about you just in case," she smiled at the nervous wreck of an Ensign. She was half a nervous wreck herself but did everything she could to not show it. Her other half was wildly running off of adrenaline, enjoying every second of the thrill. "You can do this. We'll see you soon," she added before continuing to move down the ladder.

Moving again made Li's head throb once more. The doctor had told her to take it easy and she had certainly not done that. It seemed like it was the change that brought it on, so she'd have to try to stay in motion now. She gave Paxton a thumbs up as she passed him at the junction and followed Finn down. It was hard to accept the idea they were about to start a firefight. The false starts while looking for the prisoners had been anticlimactic. Drills growing up and training with Starfleet had often been fun, but you always knew they weren't real.

When she saw Finn approaching the panel that would serve at their exit, Li shifted to the side of the ladder, squeezing down alongside her. Phaser now drawn, she readied to cover the hallway as soon as the panel came free. "Let's do this."

Finn nodded confidently, though on the inside she imagined she was as nervous as George. She'd been on plenty of missions before, but as an engineer, her tasks had almost always remained confined to engineering repairs and had never actually participated in a real firefight. Things her Marine father had taught her ran through her head as they waited for the explosion and in that moment, she wished he was there to guide her.

---

George scurried straight into the jefferies tube as the other two moved downward. The shirt under his uniform was now soaked in sweat from both nerves and heat. "Okay, you've got this. Focus. Not much farther now," he whispered under his breath as he crawled to the panel. Letting out a small sigh of relief in having made it, he tunneled in on the task at hand. "Bypass the grid, send a pulse backwards through the system, create overload," George quickly punched options on the screen and then swapped out a couple of wires. What he lacked in confidence surrounding small spaces, he made up for in his engineering skills. He pressed the final command to complete the sequence and then tore back towards the junction to join the others.

---

"That's our signal!" Finn exclaimed before popping off the hatch and jumping into the empty corridor. Her veins were coursing with adrenaline as they rushed through the engineering doors practically unnoticed. Three of the enemy engineers stood around consoles, trying to contain the leak they had just caused as white exhausted billowed through the room. A fourth engineer stood to the side, pulling off a hatch to the jefferies tube where the coolant rupture had just occurred.

Somewhere in the back of Li's mind was the sense that they should give these people the chance to surrender. She could try shouting "Freeze!" or something. But, as her phaser came to bear on the one at the hatch, she imagined Paxton stuck there, unable to escape or respond. She triggered the phaser and watched the beam reach out and strike.

Finn immediately went after the two straight in front of them. Hoovered over the engineering console and focused on containing the leak, neither stood much chance against the surprise attack and they fell to the ground one after another. The third, now alerted to their presence, turned and aimed his rifle toward the pair.

Swiveling her field of fire toward the other group, Li triggered it again, watching her shot hit a man who was already falling from Finn's fire. Before she could shift her aim again, she saw that the last mercenary's rifle was coming to bear and dove toward him. Closing the range and getting low left his shot smoldering on the bulkhead behind where she'd stood and herself at his feet. She fired straight up and he collapsed atop her in a heap.

Finn ran over to Li as the dust settled. "Thanks for the save. Are you okay?" She asked, shoving the mercenary off of her friend.

Li grunted and stayed splayed out on the deck for a moment. "My old Ushaan instructor would be proud. He always said I was too afraid of getting close. Of course, he'd cut me any time I did." She looked around the now very quiet Engineering Department. "What do you need to do now? Should I go make sure Paxton's finding his way while you get started?"

As if on cue, the doors to main engineering opened and George walked through. He was covered in sweat, but he at least appeared calmer in the larger space. Seeing that both of her companions were okay, Finn jumped back into action.

"Pax, I need you to reroute the coolant while I shunt off that portion of the system," Finn pointed to the console next to her. "Can you make sure we don't get any unwanted visitors and see if you can get a hold of anyone from our team that headed to the bridge?" She asked Li as she offered a hand and helped her up to her feet. "Hopefully, they've had as much luck as we have."

Nodding as Keating helped her up, Li slung a rife from one of the mercenaries over her shoulder and moved to an auxiliary Engineering station that afforded her a solid view of the entrance. Keeping the rifle ready, she brought up internal sensors and communications with her off hand. She studied both and frowned. Opening a channel to the bridge would be simple enough. Pretty much the same as calling down to Engineering from the helm. But, looking at the unidentified persons on the bridge, she had no idea if they were the team from Athena or more of these mercenaries. If the Commander's group wasn't on the bridge, even if she could locate them Li had no idea how to contact them without possibly alerting everyone else.

As much it ate at her having told the Captain several times on the station that she had no idea how to help, she found herself in the same situation now with Finn. She glanced over at the Chief Engineer, then directed her attention back to the entryway. At least she was competent to keep a vigilant lookout. "Um, Lieutenant? Is there a good way to contact our people? I mean, just them? I'm not really sure... how."

"If the computer can't differentiate between the life signs on the bridge then maybe we'd better wait for them to contact us," Finn replied, not having really thought about it before. Li had a good point, they wouldn't want to just call the bridge carte blanche and ruin whatever plans their team had of taking it over if they hadn't already made it there.

"On that panel you're at, you should be able to seal off engineering. Look in the emergency systems options. That'll at least help us keep intruders out while we wait to hear from the others," Finn gave a new set of instructions without looking up from her own console. She did however chance a side glance over to George. The once nervous wreck was replaced with a well-oiled machine working fervently to reroute the coolant.

Li frowned. She was used to Engineers having the answers, but then this wasn't exactly some routine repair of a shuttle she broke. "Got it," she said while tapping and scrolling through menus she'd never known were there, let alone navigated. "Systems..." she muttered to herself. "Engineering... bay? Emergency options... lockdown? Seal compartment, there it is." She tapped the apparently correct button and a set of blast doors closed, sealing off the room they were in. At the same time, a loud klaxon sounded one time and a red light started flashing behind her. "So, um..." She looked over at the other two. "Maybe that just sounded in here?"

"Shit," Finn grimaced as the alarm went off. She hadn't even thought about it when she asked Li to seal engineering and her fingers moved quickly to rig the alarm to run silently as she had finished shunting the area with the coolant leak. Immediately following which George slumped over his console exhausted.

"The coolant has been rerouted, everything should be back to working order now," he said, exasperated.

Finn breathed a sigh of relief. "Good job guys. I think we make a good team," she smiled at them both.

"Xavier to Keating," the Ops officer's voice chirped over her combadge. "Everyone okay down there? We're reading a coolant leak up here?"

"A coolant leak? What?" Finn chuckled. "We caused the leak as a distraction. It's been taken care of. The affected section is sealed off and the coolant has been rerouted. You should have full engine capabilities restored. I assume this means you were successful in your endeavors?"

After a slow, emphatic facepalm, Li muttered to herself, "Combadges? Please tell me the mercenaries took their combadges and they just got them back." She sniffed and rubbed her nose, leavinga smear of dark blue blood on her upper lip.

"The bridge is secure, thanks to my heroics," Xavier added with a laugh. "Once we have full engine control we can rendezvous with the Athena. We also need to get internal sensors back online and external comms, it would be good to-" his voice trailed off, a moment later the comline went dead.

Finn furrowed a brow as the com stopped. "Xavier? Are you okay?" She asked with a hint of concern.

"Xavier to Keating," a voice boomed over the comline. "Sorry, we have just found the Captain in a bad way and had to deal with that. Continue with the repairs and we'll do the same up here."

"Understood," Finn ended the com and nodded to no one in particular. She rolled up her sleeves and looked at her two shipmates with a grin. "Let's get to work!"